Bruce Dern Reacts to Nebraska Oscar Buzz

“Bruce [Dern] is an acting legend, and an actor’s actor, and for him to have the courage to appear on-screen with just Will Forte, after seeing MacGruber, that’s really brave,” Lorne Michaels told the crowd at MoMA, where he hosted a screening of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska on Thursday.

In reality, the Saturday Night Live alum was intimidated at the prospect of working with Payne. “I have so much respect for him as a director, I didn’t want to ruin his movie,” Forte said, laughing. “I felt this connection to the character, but never would have dreamt that I would have been able to get the role, so I was just so, so excited when I heard about it. It was just as unexpected as it gets.”

Dern also had a turn with the unexpected when he won the best-actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. “I was shocked,” he told VF Daily at the party. Because he had booked his trip to depart the day prior to the festival’s end, he explains, he wasn’t even there to receive it. “Alexander was there to get my award for me, and I really liked that.

“I don’t know how I could win an award like that there,” the 77-year-old actor said. “I was surprised [the jurors] would vote in my favor. I didn’t expect anything. And I don’t expect anything now,” he added, referring to the upcoming awards season.

Will Forte, June Squibb, and Bruce Dern., By Dave Allocca/Starpix.

Forte says working with Dern, who plays his father, was delightful. “He’s such a fun person. We would be stuck in a car together for hours and hours each day, and he has the best stories. So I would just get to hear all these stories about Alfred Hitchcock and Elia Kazan and John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe. You know, it was like going to a history-of-film class,” Forte told VF Daily at the party later at Monkey Bar.

Approachingmidnight, L’Wren Scott and Ellen Barkin dropped in and joined Lorne Michaels at a back booth, where he was holding court. Also there were Alec and Hilaria Baldwin, Amy Ryan, David Cross and Amber Tamblyn, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale, and a slew of present and former S.N.L. cast members, including Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Vanessa Bayer, Jay Pharoah, Rachel Dratch, and Taran Killam, whom VF Daily chatted with about last week’s Miley Cyrus episode.